enough to _stop_ the trespasser; and you chose the means as a
_stopping_ means, not as a _killing_ means. True, in stopping him you
killed him, but you did not kill him to stop him. You struck him to
stop him: that your blow was a mortal blow, was a circumstance which
you did not choose and could not help. All killing then in
self-defence is indirect.

5. By this explanation, resting on St. Thomas--in opposition to
Cardinal de Lugo (_De Just. et Jure_. 10, 149) and others, who allow
killing in self-defence to be the actual means chosen, and therefore
directly willed--we save four grand positions in Moral Science:

(a) The axiom, that _it is never lawful directly to take the life of
an innocent man_. For the person who perishes by occasion of your
defending yourself, may be innocent _formally_, and even _materially_
also.

(b) Likewise the axiom, that _it is never lawful for a private
individual to kill any one whatever_. We say, from a technical
standpoint, that he does not _kill_ but _arrests the onset of_ the
aggressor.

(c) We are in hearty accord with the positive law of all civilized
countries, which views with extreme suspicion all deaths said to be
done in self-defence, the law being jealous of the blood of its
citizens, and reserving the shedding thereof to itself. We teach that
only by process of law can a man ever be directly slain, his death
made a means of, and the person, who strikes him, really willing and
seeking, exactly speaking, to kill him.